Krysten Strong | Farm Bill Biologist, Pheasants Forever/USDA NRCS/ Wray, CO
This spring, after 8 years serving as the Northeastern Colorado Farm Bill Biologist, Jerry Miller hung up his biologist hat and retired to the simple life.
In 2010, Jerry was hired on as Eastern Colorado’s first Farm Bill Biologist with Pheasants Forever. A former forester, Jerry is a native of Northeastern Colorado, who’s family are well known farmers and outdoorsmen in Logan County.
During his 8-year tenure with Pheasants Forever, Jerry changed both the conservation and physical landscape in Phillips, Sedgwick, Washington, and Logan Counties of Northeastern Colorado. Even before his time with Pheasants Forever, Jerry had made it his mission to provide on the ground habitat while protecting the local water and soil resources through tree plantings along Northeast Colorado’s rural waterways. Jerry continued this mission through Pheasants Forever and Colorado Parks and Wildlife’s Pheasant Habitat Improvement Program (PHIP).
As new programs became available locally, Jerry was quick in taking action. As a fellow biologist, you knew you had to step up quick because there was no question that, left to his devices, Jerry would have no trouble in filling any and all available acres.
In his latter years with Pheasants Forever, Jerry took the state and national pollinator initiative to heart, planting thousands of acres of pollinator and monarch habitat through EQIP.
In addition to his on-the-ground habitat implementation, his outreach efforts enabled him to make a more permanent impact on habitat. Each year, Jerry would take part in a number of youth programs, set up a habitat display at every local event he could squeeze in, provided landowner workshops, and assisted in providing conservation training to producers, biologists, and future generations of conservationists.
Jerry’s presence will be missed by the Colorado PF Team, as well as many others. We wish him all the best in his retirement, as no one could deserve it more. After all, there aren’t many people who can say that their legacy has made such an impact on local habitat that it can be viewed from Google Earth!
